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New York, USA, and Cambridge, UK, April 11 – C-Suite executives are looking to cognitive technology to scale their businesses, achieve greater operational efficiencies, break down internal silos, and spark revenue growth, according to a new research study (see link) unveiled today by HfS Research in partnership with IPsoft.

HfS’ new research report, “Using Cognitive Tech to Connect Customers to Business Operations,” outlines that C-Suite executives are looking to cognitive solutions to drive more intelligent and self-learning business operations, and break down the barriers between their front, middle, and back offices, a concept which HfS Research call the Digital OneOffice™. An HfS survey shows that more than one-third of C-Suite executives (37% of survey respondents) expect cognitive technologies to reduce cost. Cognitive agents ranked as a top investment priority for enterprises; 32% of executives said they are currently involved in pilot projects. In addition, C-level executives at more mature enterprises already have started to break down siloes with cognitive solutions, and also are focused on creating better customer experiences through cognitive technology, the research shows.

The report identifies IPsoft’s 1Desk™ as an example of a solution that can connect front and back offices for greater customer centricity. 1Desk™ combines the power of Amelia, IPsoft’s digital AI colleague who can interact with both external customers and internal employees, with a newly developed autonomic backbone based on IPsoft’s IPcenter. 1Desk™ can execute business processes quickly and efficiently across IT, HR, finance, and administrative support. HfS Research interviewed several IPsoft customers piloting 1Desk™ as part of this research.

“1Desk™ is the unified service desk that converges front and back offices. It directly connects business users to the applications that service them, disintermediating large segments of IT and business operations. 1Desk™ improves user satisfaction scores not only for IT support, but for HR, finance, helpdesk, and administrative tasks. The big difference to 1Desk™ is that it has cognitive competence with Amelia, who can understand business users directly, and service their requests through automated digital labor,” said Chetan Dube, CEO of IPsoft.

Four major enterprises currently implementing Amelia and/or 1Desk within their customer service organizations were interviewed for the research, along with 100 C-level executive respondents who responded to a web- and phone-based survey.

Report author Melissa O’Brien, Research Director, Customer Engagement Strategies at HfS, shared that “the ability to predict customer expectations and act on them is essential for getting ahead in today’s global digital economy. Increasingly, business leaders are looking to break down the barriers within their organizations to support the digital experiences of their customers. Our study found that executives are looking to cognitive technologies to provide the glue that connects the business operations to the end customer - B Leveraging better quality data from smart cognitive technologies ultimately translates to competitive advantage.”

Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst at HfS and co-author of the report, added, “We have to collapse these legacy internal silos which impede business operations supporting the needs of customers, as they occur in real-time. Front and back offices are ceasing to exist for successful firms – they simply rely on OneOffice to stay ahead of their markets.”

HfS’ mission is to provide visionary insight into the major innovations impacting business operations: automation, artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital business models and smart analytics.

We focus on the future of operations across key industries. We influence the strategies of enterprise customers to develop operational backbones to stay competitive and partner with capable services providers, technology suppliers, and third-party advisors.

IPsoft is the world leader in Enterprise AI and the home of Amelia, the industry’s most-human digital AI colleague. Amelia’s ability to learn, interact and improve over time makes her the market’s only AI that can fully understand user needs and intentions. Amelia can be trained to recognize words and phrases in more than 100 languages. She delivers real-life business benefits including lower operating costs, higher customer satisfaction and increased employee productivity. IPsoft was the first company to launch an end-to-end digital platform, 1Desk, to deliver shared enterprise services. By connecting front-office conversations to back-end systems, IPsoft automates business processes that serve employees, customers and citizens, resulting in rapid resolutions, satisfied users and substantial organizational savings.

Headquartered in New York City, IPsoft has offices in 16 countries and serves more than 550 of the world’s leading brands directly, including more than half of the world’s largest IT services providers. For more visit www.ipsoft.com.

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